


everything i love is on the table

by flwrpotts



Category: Archie Comics & Related Fandoms, Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: ALL THE ANGST, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Slow Burn, and more plot than what is probably healthy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-09
Updated: 2018-04-09
Packaged: 2019-04-20 12:12:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14260725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flwrpotts/pseuds/flwrpotts
Summary: Betty doesn’t know what overcomes her, but before she has time to process what she’s doing, she’s hopping over the ropes, forcing her way into the ring. Maybe it’s the week she’s had, or the way that his head cracked against the concrete, but she can’t just stand there and do nothing.“Betty!” Veronica yells, reaching for her, but she’s already gone, jostling her way through the men that crowd the center of the room to kneel by the boy that's crumpled on the floor.OR.jughead is in an underground boxing ring. betty somehow finds herself as his cutman.





	everything i love is on the table

**Author's Note:**

> hello, it's me, coming at you with another wip that i absolutely do not have time for. this is a prologue of sorts, so sorry it's so short! anyways, this has a fair amount of blood, and will get fairly dark in the coming chapters, so pls take care. title comes from the supremely excellent "don't swallow the cap" by the national! enjoy!

_ i have only two emotions/ _

_ careful fear and dead devotion/ _

_ i can’t get the balance right/ _

\- don’t swallow the cap, the national

* * *

 

As most things do in Betty’s life, it all starts with Veronica. 

Betty’s had a long week, an endless tangle of school obligations and article deadlines and stressful calls from her mother ( _ remember how many calories are in dining hall food! _ ). By the time Friday rolls around, all she wants to do is curl up in her dorm room and watch an old movie, maybe something with Audrey Hepburn. 

Veronica Lodge, however, has other plans for the evening. 

“Please, Betty, you  _ have  _ to come with me tonight!” she pleads, “I met the  _ dreamiest  _ ginger today in Intro to Sociology, and he told me about this underground fight club! It’s every other Friday and-”

Betty cuts her off, one eyebrow arching impossibly high. “A  _ fight club _ ? Is that even legal?” she asks, voice laced with disdain. 

“Not  _ technically,  _ but come on, B! You’re only going to be nineteen once, live a little!” Veronica pleads, widening her eyes with the sort of dramatic effect learned only from a childhood doing community theatre. 

Betty sighs, trying to calculate how long it will take before Veronica drops the subject. One glance at the brunette, who’s clutching a decorative pillow with the fervor of a low-budget soap opera actress, and Betty comes to the sudden realization that resistance is futile

“One hour, and then I’m leaving,” she says, and Veronica claps her hands together in delight. 

“One hour, and we’re gone,” she promises, and Betty sighs, turning to rifle through her closet for something more  _ underground fight club  _ appropriate than her current ensemble of a pink cardigan and white keds. 

The fight, as it turns out, is held in a massive warehouse barely a mile out from campus. Betty and Veronica make their way there at half past midnight, both giggling a little at the mud that gets caked on their shoes from traipsing through a field. 

Even from outside, Betty can hear the chaos within- a combination of scraping metal and hundreds of people yelling, underlaid with ominous, throbbing rap music. 

“How are we supposed to get in?” Betty asks dubiously. 

“Archie gave me the password,” Veronica tells her, knocking three times on the rusted over door. 

The sound nearly gets lost in all the noise, but by some miracle the door creaks open, and a boy in a leather jacket pokes his head out, scowling.

“Can I help you?” he asks flatly, looking both of the girls up and down with a gaze that lingers a little too long. 

“I certainly hope so,” Veronica replies briskly. “We’re here for the fight.”

The boy steps out and shuts the door firmly behind him. Betty notices that he has a snake tattoo curling at his neck, looking heavy and imprecise in a way that suggests it was done at home. 

“Jesus Christ,”  he hisses, glancing around like there’s someone eavesdropping. “Can you keep your voice down?”

“If the police were going to come, I’m pretty sure they would have been here by now,” Betty points out. There’s a grand crashing noise inside, emphasizing her point. Veronica looks like she’s trying very hard to suppress a smirk, with limited success.

The boy crosses his arms over his chest in a distinctly put off manner, but he doesn’t argue the point further. “You got the password?”

“ _ Daredevil _ ,” Veronica says lightly, and this time it’s Betty’s turn to fight the instinct to laugh. The boy mutters something that sounds suspiciously like  _ fucking Jones _ before swinging the door open. 

“Ladies,” he says, gesturing for them to step inside with a mocking half bow. He immediately slumps down into the metal folding chair that sits on the other side of the door, picking up an abandoned book of sudoku puzzles and a pack of Marlboro Reds. 

“Thanks for the help” Veronica says, only slightly sarcastic, before she pulls Betty into the crowd without another glance back.

Inside, the warehouse is dark and stuffy, the air thick enough to make normal breathing difficult. Betty feels her pulse quicken, and she doesn’t know if it’s from the stifling heat or the deafening volume of people around her. Excitement tinges the air, college kids and adults alike crowding the room, cheering and passing sweaty bills from hand to hand too fast for her to follow.

_ This is not the place for me _ she thinks to herself quickly, wildly, and Veronica’s hand slides tightly into her own, pulling her through the crowd. Betty holds onto it like her life depends on it, watching with something like awe as Veronica elbows her through the mass of people, earning more than a few dirty looks along the way. 

The ring is at the center of the room, and Betty’s gaze catches on the two men inside, who are currently beating one another to a pulp. She realizes with a start that one of them is Reggie Mantle, the swimmer who sits next to her in Calculus.

The match is evenly balanced, maybe too even, and has clearly been going on a while, if the frustrated yelling from the audience is any indication. Both boys are bloodied and exhausted, but something like adrenaline starts to thrum through Betty’s veins as she watches them throw punches at one another. 

Finally the other one, a boy with red hair and impossible toned abs, gets the upper hand, slugging Reggie hard enough that she can hear his nose break. Blood sprays onto the dirty concrete, and she flinches. The audience goes wild, loud enough that she can feel the vibrations in her bones. 

“That’s the guy,” Veronica says into her ear, breath hot, and Betty looks at the boy in question as he helps his bested opponent off the floor, shaking his hand once for good measure. He’s just Veronica’s type- the sort of all-American good looks that her best friend has always favored. 

“Archie!” Veronica calls, waving a perfectly manicured hand, and he looks over, face splitting into a wide grin when he catches sight of Veronica. He pats Reggie once more on the back good-naturedly before he makes his way over to them, still shirtless and with bruises already rising along his jaw. 

“Ronnie!” he says, pulling the girl in question into a side hug. Veronica, for her part, doesn’t even scrunch up her nose at how sweaty he is. 

“Archiekins” she replies brightly. “You looked amazing out there.”

Archie scrubs a hand through his hair, grinning bashfully. “Thanks,” he says. “Hey listen- you wanna stick around for a little bit? Two of the best fighters here are going up against one another next. You don’t want to miss it.”

Veronica looks over to Betty, eyes pleading. The blonde sighs in response. It’s obvious how badly Veronica wants to stay, and despite her better judgement, there’s something darkly appealing about this abandoned warehouse, the raw physicality of what takes place there. 

“Just one more,” she appeases, and Veronica and Archie both grin like it’s Christmas morning. The mob around them continues to thrum with anticipation, people whispering and placing bets around her. Betty notices suddenly that the fine spray of blood drying on the floor is patterned just like constellations. Her stomach twists, a strange combination of nerves and excitement.

It takes a few minutes of Betty awkwardly third-wheeling and trying to avoid beer stains on her pristinely white shoes before someone finally takes the stage. The audience yells and jeers, and then a girl with a spill of shockingly red hair steps up, dressed in an outfit wholly inappropriate for an underground boxing match and holding a megaphone. 

“Ladies and gentlemen,” she says dramatically. “The moment you’ve all been waiting for. This evening’s challenger, Chuck Clayton, will be going up against none other than our reigning champion- Jughead Jones. We are not held liable for any property or bodily damage that takes place! Boys, best of luck.”

She sashays off, and people begin to cheer, even louder than before. Veronica laces her fingers through Betty’s and squeezes hard. 

“You’re sure you don’t want to go?” she asks. “Just say the word, and we’ll return home to the land of frat parties and dining hall food.”

“I’m fine, V,” she says, just loudly enough to be heard. Veronica starts to say something else, but her voice is drowned out by the onslaught of noise. She turns to the stage to see the two boxers appear onstage, both still being hyped up by their respective groups of friends. The crowd goes wild- crop topped undergrads and grizzled fortysomethings alike losing their shit. 

One of the boys is dark and well built, grinning confidently and winking at a couple girls in the crowd. It’s clear he thinks he’s already won the match, if the cocky grin on his face is any indication. Betty catches Veronica flick him an appreciative glance, before she fixes her attention back on Archie. 

The other boy is a study in contrasts. He’s skinnier than she was expecting, not quite as built as the other boxers she’s seen, but easily taller than his opponent. A pretty girl with pink hair done in two braids has her hands on his shoulders, seemingly giving him a very stern pep talk. He nods once at what she’s saying, dark hair falling in his eyes, and then the same boy who let them through the door earlier is thumping him on the back, gesturing for him to get into the middle of the ring.

“That’s Jughead,” Archie says to them. “We grew up together. He’s the best one here.”

_ Jughead  _ Betty thinks to herself, puzzling it over. It’s an odd name for an odd reigning champion. He doesn’t pander to the crowd like Chuck does, instead choosing to cross his arms over his chest and idly size up the competition, face the picture of detached amusement. 

“Ready to get your ass kicked, Jones?” Chuck asks loudly, whipping the audience into a frenzy. 

“Not all of us get off on pain, Chuck,” he drawls in response, sounding bored by the entire conversation.

The bullhorn suddenly sounds, and Chuck lunges at him, but Jughead easily side steps. He tsks in disapproval, the corner of his mouth kicking up in a smirk. 

“Hasn’t anyone ever told you that patience is a virtue?” he deadpans, and Chuck throws another punch, getting sloppy in his anger. He misses, and Jughead seizes his opportunity, punching him in the jaw hard enough that she can feel it in her teeth. 

Betty loses her line of sight a second later, some football player moving to stand in front of her. She stands up on her tiptoes, craning her neck to try to follow the action. She slides forwards through a gap in the crowd, ignoring the way that elbows jostle her back and forth. She’s almost perilously close to the ring now, and she presses back against the crowd when Chuck nearly collides into her. 

Fingers wrap around her elbow, and then Veronica is pulling her back. 

“What the hell are you doing?” she asks, nearly yelling to be heard above the mob.

“I couldn’t see from back there!” Betty replies, pulling her arm out of Veronica’s grasp and focusing back on the match. She doesn’t know what exactly it is that she finds so captivating, only that she can’t bear to turn away from the action.

Where Chuck is a slugger, Jughead is a counter-puncher, quick on his feet and fast to adjust. He holds the upper hand for the first five minutes, maneuvering Chuck into a corner and getting a few good hits in. But then he stumbles, pitching forward, and Chuck brings his knee up to collide with Jughead’s face. 

Bone crunches, blood spraying once more, but Jughead doesn’t go down, instead returning with a blow to the ribs that makes Chuck gasp. 

She watches with bated breath as both boys get bloodier, exhaustion bearing down on their movements as the minutes tick onwards. Blood still pulses thickly from Jughead’s nose, and he sniffs loudly, dragging the back of his hand across his face in between breaths. 

Archie lets out a long breath, looking anxious as he takes in the scene. “They’re gonna have to call it soon,” she overhears him say to Veronica. “This can’t keep going on.”

But Chuck gets in one last solid hit, and Jughead goes down, body hitting the floor with an ominous thump. A second passes, then two, but he doesn’t get up.  The room is silent for only a moment before the screaming starts, everyone dividing into camps of the smug and the bitterly disappointed. Money changes hands once more, but she watches as Jughead barely starts to stir from where he’s crumpled on the ground. 

Betty doesn’t know what overcomers her, but before she has time to process what she’s doing, she’s hopping over the ropes, forcing her way into the ring. Maybe it’s the week she’s had, or the way that his head cracked against the concrete, but she can’t just stand there and do  _ nothing.  _

“Betty!” Veronica yells, reaching for her, but she’s already gone, jostling her way through the men that crowd the center of the room.

The same pink haired girl that was talking to Jughead before the match is now crouched on the ground next to him, cupping his face between her hands. She isn’t as panicked as Betty is expecting, probably because it isn’t the first time something like this has happened. 

“Here, help me get him up,” Betty says, a little breathless as she kneels next to them. Her gaze flits over him, already cataloguing the damage and comparing it to what she’s seen in her anatomy textbooks. 

“Who the hell are you?” the girl asks, voice suspicious. 

“A pre-med student,” Betty replies. She neglects to mention that she dropped out of the program last week, switching her major to investigative journalism without telling either of her parents. 

“A  _ pre-med student _ ?” the girl says incredulously.

“Look, you can interrogate me later,” Betty says impatiently, opening one of the boy’s eyes to check for movement. “Right now, he needs medical attention. So help me get him up and to the bathroom, or wherever.”

Her mouth thins with displeasure, but she does as asked. Together, the two girls haul Jughead to a room in the back, only marginally cleaner than the rest of the ring. They set him down on a table, and he starts to stir into consciousness. 

“Do you have a first aid kit?” Betty asks, and the girl nods, digging around the room in search of medical supplies. 

Veronica bursts into the room half a second later, Archie right on her heels. 

“ _ Betty,”  _ she says. “Pray tell what it was that compelled you to disappear into the crowd of an  _ underground fight club?”  _

“Sorry, V,” she replies apologetically. “Pass me those tweezers?”

Veronica looks like she’s halfways between pissed off and proud, but she dutifully hands her the barely sterilized tool. 

Betty works quickly and with a laser focus, blocking out the world around her. She may not love medicine, but she’s  _ good  _ at it, all precise movements and techniques learned so well she doesn’t have to think before doing them. 

The damage isn’t as bad as she originally assumed- some bruising on his ribs, a broken nose, maybe a minor concussion. Nothing a week of rest won’t be able to fix. She studies his face in the weak fluorescent light, momentarily enamored by the elegant planes of his face, the sharp curve of his cheekbones. 

_ Get it together, Cooper  _ she thinks to herself, and straightens up from when she’s bent over him, forcibly willing herself not to blush. She moves to step back, but before she can a large hand wraps around her wrist, stopping her. 

Jughead blinks at her through hooded eyelids. “Who the hell are you?” he asks, slurring through his split lip. 

“I’m Betty. You should get some rest,” she replies softly, pulling her wrist out of his warm grasp. She ignores the way that electricity seems to spark underneath her skin, radiating from the point of contact. 

He scowls at her, but a few seconds later his eyelids begin to stubbornly close. He stirs, appearing to fight against the impulse.

“Sleep,” she says again, and this time he does, sighing loudly as his eyes fall shut. Betty can’t help but brush back an errant curl from his forehead.

“You done?” a voice asks, and Betty turns on her heel to see the same pink haired girl watching her, one eyebrow arched. 

Betty clears her throat, feeling blood rise to her face. “He’ll be fine,” she says evenly. “The damage wasn’t too bad. But he does seem to have a mild concussion, so no fighting for at least a week.”

The girl nods once, and then offers her hand to shake. “Toni Topaz,” she says seriously, and Betty shakes her hand.

“Betty Cooper,” she replies.

She turns to examine the rest of the room. Now that she’s broken out of her reverie, she sees that the warehouse has almost completely cleared out, all the people ready to return home or hit up the next bar. 

Archie and the two other boys in leather jackets are in the process of dismantling the ring, mopping up the dried blood and picking broken shards of beer bottles up off the floor in what is clearly a well-practiced routine. 

Veronica has someone managed to find a pair of neon yellow rubber gloves, which she’s wearing as she dutifully helps Archie pick up jagged pieces of glass. Betty feels a dull pang of fondness for her best friend, the way that she tips back her head to laugh when Archie makes a joke too quiet for her to hear. 

“Not so glamorous afterwards, is it?” Toni asks with a sardonic grin, noticing the way that Betty is taking in the scene. 

Veronica waltzes over in her high heels, holding out a trash bag at arm’s length. “Oh, I don’t know,” she replies before Betty can say anything. “I think the place has a certain charm to it. Very Orwellian.”

Toni huffs out a laugh despite herself, and even Betty manages a grin. 

“You ready to head home, V?” she asks, and Veronica nods.

“I think it’s me that should be asking you that,” she says wryly, shucking off the plastic gloves and throwing them out with the rest of the trash. 

“Thanks, for tonight,” Toni says, not quite soft, and Betty nods once.

“It was no problem,” she says, allowing Veronica to loop through hers as they begin to walk through the door. 

“So, when were you going to tell me about your gig as a part time cutman?” Veronica asks as they step out into the warm night air. Betty inhales once in relief, grateful to be back out in the open air.

“Trust me,” she replies. “It was a one time thing. Never to happen again.”

Veronica nods, but there’s something knowing in her grin as they make their way home, dawn just beginning to break over the distant treeline. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> thanks so much for reading!!! comments/kudos are my lifeblood, and come hang out with me on tumblr @flwpotts to scream into the void!


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